Sanju Samson would be in the starting XI for both teams in the world. The wicketkeeper batter made his debut in 2015 but has played just 46 matches since. Why has one of the most talented players in the last decade featured in less than 50 matches? The question can be answered in just two words: Rishabh Pant.
Sanju Samson has fallen victim to India’s highly competitive domestic system. Australia may have more titles, but no one comes close to the Indian cricket team when we talk about depth. Team India often has backups for backups. Take this as an example: India’s current white-ball vice-captain, Shubman Gill, didn’t even make it to the squad for the T20 World Cup 2024 due to Yashasvi Jaiswal, who himself was a backup for Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli.
Sanju Samson to follow Dinesh Karthik’s footsteps?
Samson isn’t the first wicketkeeper to suffer such a consequence. Dinesh Karthik, his predecessor as the perceptual bench warmer, went through this as well. It was MS Dhoni for Karthik who forced him to sit out, and it’s Pant who’s doing the same to Samson.
Karthik had made his debut just three months before Dhoni. The keeper batter from Tamil Nadu played a respectable number of matches (160) for India across formats but fell way short of Dhoni’s tally of 538 matches. This happened despite Karthik playing until 2024 and Dhoni retiring in 2019.
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Any chance for Sanju Samson going forward?
Pant made his debut one and a half years after Samson, and he already has 94 more caps. The southpaw has played more ODIs and T20Is than Samson, and you could already call him India’s greatest-ever wicketkeeper batter in Test cricket.
Pant is also better than Samson behind the stumps, showing his mettle in different conditions and countries, and has kept to legends like Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah with ease.
Being three years younger than Samson is another advantage. Pant has yet to find himself in white-ball cricket, but despite that, he continues to feature for India. If the cricketer from Delhi can keep Samson out of the India XI despite not reaching his peak right now, you can’t really expect that he won’t do so in the coming years.
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